Children and Popular Culture - Literature review Example

Running head: CHILDREN AND POPULAR CULTURE 1 Children and Popular Culture Name Institution Children and Popular Culture Introduction This review focuses on two articles: Digital Beginnings: Young Children’s Use of Popular Culture, Media and New Technologies by Marsh et al (2005) on one hand, and Literacy in the Digital Age: Learning from Computer Games by Beavis et al (2008), on the other. The first article detailed the findings of a study conducted by the authors from September 2004 to July 2005 of the use by children of popular culture, media and technologies in the home. The study was made by surveying 1,852 parents and carers who attended 120 maintained and non-maintained early years settings in England, as well as 524 early years practitioners who worked in the aforesaid settings. The second article, on the other hand, described the findings of a research study on the incorporation of computers in English teaching in Victorian secondary schools. The study was funded by the Australian Research Council. Although there are similarities in these studies, there are also dissimilarities. Obviously, the evident similarity is that both tackled popular media as an influential impact on children, but while the Marsh et al (2005) study focused on very young children, the Beavis et al study (2009) had zeroed in on older children. Moreover, whilst both studies conducted their research by incorporating certain action projects in the educational setting, the Marsh et al study (2005) took a more general and inclusive view of popular culture, whilst the Beavis et al (2009) study tackled only an aspect of popular culture, namely, computer and video gaming. However, both studies took a departure from the usual view of popular culture and the new technologies. Rather than viewing and focusing on these aspects as something that can potentially imperial the learning process and development of children, both studies viewed popular culture and digital media and technologies as potentially literacy-enhancing with respect to children. Research Paradigm (positivism, post-positivism, critical theory and constructivism or interpretivism) Both the Marsh et al (2005) and Beavis et al (2009) studies worked along the same line of themes and research paradigms in their respective research. Both these studies combined qualitative and quantitative approaches and, therefore, both their research paradigms are seen from both perspectives. Krauss (2005) stated that qualitative researchers are most likely to see things from a different epistemological view than quantitative researchers. The former often see a phenomenon as something that must be viewed from its context rather than quantifying it because this is a limited perspective and would only result in risking the importance of its entirety. Thus, rather than working from a hypothesis or theory, a qualitative researcher often lets the data control the flow of the theory. In this respect, qualitative researchers often subscribed to the ‘multiple realities’ view. In short, a research paradigm is one that involves a set of basic assumptions relative to the world view, which serves to underpin the researcher’s study (Wahyuni 2012). Both Marsh et al (2005) and Beavis et al (2008) showed elements of positivism, interpretivism or constructivism and pragmatism. Both studies are very much concerned with how the educational system can exploit knowledge on how children interact with popular culture and bringing this knowledge into the classroom to make learning more meaningful and updated, with the understanding that these new technological developments that form part of the new popular culture are changing the way young people are thinking, communicating and understanding things. Knowledge of this aspect can serve as a tool for the educational system to create and develop institutional changes and upgrade to keep up and be more relevant to students and the times. All these showed elements of positivism in the sense that the researchers believed that phenomena exist independent of social actors and, thus, research is undertaken in a value-free manner – that is the research relies on where the data will take them. The studies have also shown elements of constructivism or interpretivism in their construction of the concept of children – their role and the role of childhood in the development of a person. In both studies, children are constructed as independent entities that have capabilities to learn and interact with these new technologies on their own outside of the assistance of the school and the supervision of adults. The Marsh et al (2005) study constructed ‘children’ for the purpose of this study as those below the age of six. Whilst acknowledging the concerns presently being hyped by many research leading to moral panic that new technologies, such as digital media, are adversely impacting children on the emotional, social and psychological levels as “not to be dismissed” (p. 11), the authors suggested that it is more practical to adopt the ‘asset model’ of associating children with these new technological developments. Proposed by Robinson and McKay (2003), the ‘asset model’ entails the examination of the positive impact of these new technologies on the children. The authors viewed a positive role for popular culture on the self-esteem and self-identity of young children – seeing it as a vehicle for young children to try out different roles and as means of forging closer kinship and ties with other members of the family and their peers. In the Beavis et al (2008) study, the focus of the study was children in their secondary years of study. Just as in the other study, the role of children in the educational curricula is given much importance. Thus, instead of simply relying on the system to implement their own curriculum of learning as it sees fit, the perspectives of children in the way they interact with the new technologies are given centrality so that the system can understand as to how this interaction can be imported into the classroom and be exploited to enhance learning. In this sense, both studies saw children from a subjective point of view – persons who may be affected and impacted by their environment. Methods/Tools The Marsh et al study employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches in the conduct of their research. Quantitative research is primarily characterised by “the measurement of quantity or amount” (Kothari 2004, p. 3). This is evident in phase one of the Marsh et al study where surveys in the form of questionnaires were sent out to parents, carers and early practitioners. As a result, statistical graphs were generated on the following data, amongst others: children’s ownership of media in bedrooms; children’s activities on a typical day; proportion of children engaging in activities of their own, and; percentage of time children spent on specific activities in their bedrooms. However, the researchers employed the qualitative approach in the second phase of the study where the action intervention projects were implemented in the educational setting. During this phase, a focus group of eight children were created in each foundational setting. The intervention projects consisted of the introduction of aspect of popular culture, media and new technologies into the curriculum of the LEAs, specifically in communications, language and literacy. Some of these action projects involved role playing of popular culture animated film characters, such as Spiderman, Bob the Builder, Buzz Lightyear, Nemo, Big Cook, Little Cook, and Batman, as well as the use of comics to promote reading. From these action projects, the researchers made observations as to the impact of the projects on the practitioners, on the motivation and engagement of children, on progress in language and communications, and on progress in literacy. This approach is classic qualitative research – that is, the emphasis on words and analysis rather than on data quantification (Bryman 2015). Qualitative research is concerned with exploring phenomena involving quality or kind, such as that being dealt with in this part of the Marsh et al study. It attempts to discover and uncover underlying motives and desires, and for those purposes projective techniques, such as in-depth interviews, story completion tests and word association tests, are utilised (Kothari 2004). On the other hand, the Beavis et al (2009) study used a qualitative approach in the three years in which the study took place. However, it also had an occasion to use the quantitative approach when it made a survey on students at the end of the second year to enable “enable the collection of quantitative data around the general patterns and experience of game playing” (Beavis et al 2009, p. 168). The bulk of the study, however, made use of research designs that are characteristically qualitative, such as action research projects, case studies of leisure time literacy practices of students, the incorporation of digital texts and literacies in the classroom, and observations of out-of-school literacy practices of young people to support their use in the classroom. The first year of the study was spent in educating and orienting teachers in computer games after negotiations with the involved schools involved went through. This was the professional development where teachers and researchers gathered and met at ACMI to discuss, present input, share ideas and plan the logistics of working with computer games. Each specific game to be used in the study was discussed and analysed and the first round of the action project was planned. This was followed by interviews with students and teachers and towards the end of the year a survey was conducted on playing practices, preferences and experiences. In order to successfully implement the action projects, the researchers created four frameworks. The first framework guided the analysis of narrative, structure and ideology in multimodal texts; the second to understand texts and social and literary practices at the same time; the third to understand the role of digital literacies in the lives of young people, and; the fourth – a 3D model – for teachers and students to engage in collaborative work to explore and analyse digital texts. Ethical Considerations According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the term ‘children’ refers to persons under the age of 18 (cited in Morrow 1996). Both of the studies being reviewed are concerned with children, which make the studies potentially sensitive. This is because a divide exists as to how to treat children – whether in the same fashion as adults or whether entirely different from adults – in research. The former becomes problematic because of the power imbalance that exists between adults and children. Treating them like adults in research implies neglect in addressing this issue. On the other hand, if they are to be treated as entirely different from adults then adults must be able understand the way a child sees things and this means spending a considerable period of time with that child. Even this is not considered sufficient simply because an adult, being an adult and not a child, can never fully grasped how a child views things (Punch 2002). According to Thomas and Kane (1998), ethical issues surrounding studies that directly involve children can be solved by using a participatory approach in which children are given the opportunity to interpret data themselves. According to the general guidelines on research involving children, the latter must only be directly involved if information or knowledge cannot be obtained in any other way that does not involve them. Moreover, such a research must benefit them. Both the studies of Marsh et al and Beavis et al have met both these criteria in the sense that the knowledge they wanted to obtain from the studies could not be gained without involving the children directly and the results of the studies would be of benefit to children in general (Morrow and Richards 1996). The Marsh et al (2005) did not directly discuss the ethics of involving children in the study. However, a large part of the study involved having adults, such as parents, carers and early practitioners answer on behalf of the children asking them to write down their observation of their respective children or wards’ access, experience and use of popular culture, media and digital technologies. In the part of the study where children are directly involved, the consent of the parents of the children involved were obtained prior to the implementation of the action intervention projects. Similarly, Beavis et al did not directly discuss ethical issues directly, but indirectly referred to them. However, since the action projects were implemented in school setting, the researchers only negotiated and obtained consent from school authorities. Analysis/Results In Marsh et al (2005), the questionnaires were analysed and the impact of the intervention projects was evaluated in a number of methods by the early practitioners themselves who were given instructions on these methods before implementation of the project. Some of these methods were open observations and observation using The Leuven Involvement Scale for Young Children, interviews on parents and staff, photographs and videos, and the works of the children themselves. The interviews were conducted before and after the implementation of the second part of the study. Inventories were also conducted before and after the implementation. The authors made several findings at the conclusion of the study: children are exposed from birth to digital media and other forms of popular culture; exposure of the children to them does not interfere with their development, but rather enhance it; parents are positive about the role that such exposure give to their children and support this by providing children with resources for such exposure, and; early practitioners are positive in their views of the role of popular culture, media and technologies in child development. In the Beavis et al study (2009), the students were surveyed after a considerable time had passed from the start of the study. The surveyed showed that more than 80% of the students played video games. Interviews and case studies were also employed. The researchers concluded that there is still much to learn on the impact of video and computer gaming on the teaching of both print and digital literacies. Challenges/Limitations Both the Marsh et al (2005) and Beavis et al (2009) studies are focused on the importance of children in informing the kind of evolution that educational system must direct itself. In these studies, the views and personal experiences of children in interacting and absorbing popular culture and new technologies are given primary importance, rather than simply turning a blind eye and let the system dictate what type and kind of education it simply wants to implement and impose on the children. Both these studies also worked from a positive point-of-view, giving popular culture and the advances in new digital technologies as something positive, rather than be overwhelmed by it and adopt the moral panics that had obviously informed earlier studies. Thus, rather than declare these new developments as something that may imperil the development and growth of children, these studies have acknowledged the advantages that popular control and digital culture can offer to children. References Beavis, C., Apperley, T., Bradford, C., O’Mara, J. and Walsh, C. (2009). ‘Literacy in the Digital Age: Learning from Computer Games.’ English in Education, vol. 43, no. 2, pp162-175. Bryman, A. (2015). Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press. Kothari, C.R. (2004). Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. New Age International Publishing. Krauss, S. (2005). ‘Research Paradigms and Meaning Making: A Primer.’ The Qualitative Report, vol. 10, no. 4, pp758-770. Marsh, J., Brooks, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L., Roberts, S. and Wright, K. (2005). ‘Digital Beginnings: Young Children’s Use of Popular Culture, Media and New Technologies,’ Report of the ‘Young Children’s Use of Popular Culture, Media and New Technologies’ Study, funded by BBC Worldwide and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Morrow, V. and Richards, M. (1996). ‘The Ethics of Social Research with Children: An Overview.’ Children and Society, vol. 10, pp90-105. Punch, S. (2002). ‘Research with Children: The Same or Different from Research with Adults?’ Childhood, vol. 9, no. 3, pp321-341. Thomas, N. and Kane, C. (1998). ‘The Ethics of Participatory Research with Children.’ Children & Society, vol. 12, pp336-348. Wahyuni, D. (2012). ‘The Research Design Maze: Understanding Paradigms, Cases, Methods and Methodologies.’ JAMAR, vol. 10, no. 1, pp69-80. Read More